Entries tagged with “Sonny Boy Oats”
Issues
Time on Death Row
,Sep 22, 2021
Nevada Supreme Court Finds Samuel Howard Innocent of the Death Penalty 40 Years After He Was Sent to Death Row
The Nevada Supreme Court has found that a prisoner who has been on the state’s death row for more than forty years is “actually innocent” of the death penalty and must be resentenced. In a ruling issued on September 16, 2021, the court reversed the death sentence imposed on Samuel Howard in 1983 for a 1980 robbery and murder in Las Vegas, holding that the sole remaining aggravating circumstance in his case that had made him eligible for the death penalty was invalid. Writing for a unanimous…
Issues
Apr 13, 2021
Sonny Boy Oats Found Ineligible for the Death Penalty After 40 Years on Florida’s Death Row
After more than 40 years on Florida’s death row, Sonny Boy Oats (pictured), one of the nation’s longest serving death-row prisoners, has been found ineligible for the death penalty. On April 2, 2021, a Marion County trial court vacated Oats’ death sentence and resentenced him to life in prison, accepting a stipulation between prosecutors and the defense that Oats is intellectually disabled. In February 2020, Ric Ridgway, Chief Assistant in the Florida Fifth Circuit State Attorney’s office…